


you're the only one (alright)

by storytimewithme6



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Car Accidents, Coping, Donghyuck is deceased, Inspired by my life, M/M, This is really sad, im just not okay and lost a friend and it's rly sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-10 02:55:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20520791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storytimewithme6/pseuds/storytimewithme6
Summary: donghyuck is fatally injured in a car accident at 17 years old, 2 days into their senior year.inspired by true events





	you're the only one (alright)

**Author's Note:**

> this isnt something id usually do. i lost a friend in a car accident this weekend. seventeen years old. two days into our senior year of highschool. cherish the ones you love.

there's something about death. 

death, who is cruel & unforgiving. 

death, the only demon that's ever made mark question his faith in God. 

•

mark thinks he's supposed to feel something. 

anything. 

he waits for it to come. for the anger to rip through his chest cavity & up into his throat, ripping words from his voice box until the chords snap in his neck, choking sounds from his pretty mouth.

he waits for the sadness to pull at his tongue until salt falls down his face, until his body shakes so hard he's sure the ground beneath him is falling. 

off is what he feels. 

off is all he feels. 

the school holds a vigil the day after they announce his death. almost everyone shows up: people from their small town, people from others. parents, kids, donghyuck's family. 

his close friends talk to the croud, as animated as robots, and mark still feels nothing. feels nothing, even after watching renjun collapse to his knees, looking up and cursing the sky. 

he's calm. stoic, even, as though he's done this hundreds of times before- but he hasn't. his face never moves. he doesn't laugh when jisung talks about the one time donghyuck got gum stuck in his hair, & chenle cut it out so sloppy there was a bald spot on the right side of his head for almost three months. 

he doesn't cry when donghyuck's mom says mark was the best friend he's ever had. 

he just exists. breathes. inhales, counts to five, exhales. brushes his teeth. showers in the dark. counts to five, exhales.

he goes to school on the third day. when he's pouring his cereal in the morning, he realizes donghyuck only lived two days into his senior year. 

it's then, he realizes, that life & time alike, are cruel. 

he walks down the hallway of avenues high school the same way he had many times before.

except now, this is different. everybody else looks at mark as though he's grown a third eye, or another head had sprouted between both his neck & his shoulderblade. they whisper when he turns to his locker, & their gazes burn into his neck when he has to retry his combination a second time, just because he couldn't focus long enough to do it the first. 

this is different, mark thinks, when he finally gets it open. his eyes glance to the small to-do list on his locker door. he slams it shut when he recognizes donghyuck's handwriting. 

on the walk to fourth period, there is no small wave to his lover. there is no soft smile, or a pink tint that crosses his cheeks. there's no excited gasp when he sees mark. 

just silence. 

counts to five, exhales. 

mark thinks the emotions in him died when donghyuck did. 

everyone else that day, moves on. nobody remembers. they pretend to, post old pictures of themselves and donghyuck in elementary school from dusty photo albums & offer their condolences in a highly saturated, faux instagram caption. 

for selfish reasons, mark hates them. hates that they'd pretend to be close to someone they hardly ever spoke to. 

mark can almost hear him. 

"funny," donghyuck would say. "they never liked me that much, did they, canada?" he'd laugh, soft & airy, refreshing like the way rain fell on a sweaty summer's day. "all i had to do was die."

his teachers all look at him sympathetically. each period, he's reminded of the counselling available in the school library. his chemistry teacher even goes so far as to say his work for the week is excused. 

the day drags on. slow. each period mark sits in feels longer than the last.

he realizes that school is now his own personal hell- a walking time capsule of all of their firsts. their first kiss that happened in the courtyard just outside of his calculus class. their first fight, where donghyuck had walked right out the back exit & through mark as though he didn't even exist.

mark thinks he'd give the world to fight with donghyuck one more time. 

school finally ends. the bell rings, & it's all over. the weight of the day crushes down hard on his body, seeps its way into the bags that lay heavy under his eyes & fill each curve of his lithe frame. 

renjun invites him to coffee with the rest of donghyuck's friends. mark thinks it hurts too bad to see them. 

he can hear donghyuck's voice in the back of his head. 

"go, canada," he would say, & mark imagines he'd run his hands through the black hair on mark's scalp. "be with them. they need you just as bad as you need them."

for a moment, he can almost feel those fingertips, cold like ice, melting & scratching faint patterns into his head, the way donghyuck would lead him to sleep. 

he goes, then. for no reason other than donghyuck alone. he still feels nothing. not when jeno asks if he'd slept, not when jisung starts to cry again.

on the drive home, in the silver camaro in which donghyuck used to put his feet on the dash, mark can see it now: floppy brown hair. lollipop in one hand, the other feeling the wind between his fingers from out the window.

he feels like the only thing that will keep him alive are the memories. it's the sweatshirt that he clutches onto at night, but not too tightly because he's terrified it'll lose its smell- the smell of donghyuck. it's the half-written psych essay mark was proofreading for him on his nightstand. 

that night in bed, mark sits up. it's dark in his room, hollow like the rest of him. he looks to the ceiling. imagines that someone, somewhere is listening. maybe donghyuck. maybe God. 

he starts to laugh softly. mumbles, muffled laughter, like the kind that he'd share with donghyuck once they'd finally cleaned up from sex & mark had pulled him close. 

it gets louder. roaring, now. like the engine of the car that took his everything away.

then he cries. hard, all at once. like the hoover dam has come alive from inside his chest & burst, draining him of all of the salt in his body. snot runs down his face & he is too tired to use anything other than his sleeves to push it away.

mark soon realizes that memories last forever.

people don't.

**Author's Note:**

> be safe, loves.


End file.
